Krystal & I Go Geocaching

Like many 30-year-olds, Krystal and I work hard for our money, only to watch our hard-earned money disappear to student loans.

We like to have fun, but also have a limited budget for fun. What to do?

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A few weeks ago, out of the blue, I got an odd text from Krystal:

Sat, Mar 19, 13:23

We should go geocaching

There are a butt load Downtown

I’d love that but you don’t like the outdoors

And?

There are? Let’s do it!

I downloaded the app

That would be something fun to do together that doesn’t cost anything.

True!

Looks like fun 🙂

The colander got rid of most of the broccoli

Woot!

You’re a 💡 🍪

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For those that don’t know, geocaching works like this:

Someone hides a container of varying size somewhere out in the wide world.

The container should have paper inside and some containers have trinkets.

That person then submits the GPS coordinates of the container to a geocache site.

Another person then selects the geocache from an online app and get the GPS coordinates – good to within 30 feet or so.

Using a phone or other GPS device, the searcher navigates to the spot the geocache is hidden – and some of them are hidden quite well indeed!

Once the geocache is found, the seeker then signs their name and the date they found the geocache on the log, exchanges any trinkets they may want, and logs the geocache as “Found!” on their list or app.

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So, last Saturday we headed out into the city we thought we knew to discover a different side of it. Unfortunately, the app Krystal found recently switched from a pay-one-price model to a yearly subscription model; therefore, we were limited to the “free” geocaches.

Nevertheless, we enjoyed ourselves immensely as we traipsed about nearby parks and the downtown area.

Turns out I make a good navigator and Krystal has quite the eye for hidden objects.

Here’s some pictures from our expedition:

 

We learned some things:

Magnetic hide-a-key holders can make life interesting.

If you think your container is waterproof, it’s probably not.

If we ever make our own geocache, we’re going the PVC cylinder route.

Geocaches can survive for quite some time; one we found was first put in place back in 2010.

Geocaches can be almost anywhere; we found one in a cemetery!

I’ll admit, that particular search felt more than a little unorthodox.

Here’s what things looked like at the end of the day:

It’s like hunting for buried treasure without the deadly traps (but snakes are still an issue).

Have you ever been geocaching?

What do you do for cheap fun?